Makoto Shinkai’s latest film, 5 Centimeters per Second aka A Chain of Short Stories about Their Distance, will receive its first english subbed dvd release later this week when the HK dvd hits the streets. Korean and JP dvds were already released, but without subs. R1 release should be on its way also (possibly December). The film both looks amazing and has received extremely positive feedback.

I’ll try to write something about 5 cm tomorrow, but first lets get The Place Promised in Our Early Days out of the day:

[quote=“Hung Fist”]The Place Promised in Our Early Days (Japan, 2004) â€“ 5/5

When a directorâ€™s debut film is a masterpiece one shouldnâ€™t expect the next one to be as good. That doesnâ€™t seem to apply to Makoto Shinkai. At least on the first viewing The Place Promised in Our Early Days felt about twice as good as Voices of a Distant Star. Itâ€™s still not perfect as itâ€™s a bit over-written and stumbles with some scifi content that couldâ€™ve been left out for the most part. Nevertheless, if it wasnâ€™t for Shinkaiâ€™s next film, which is out on dvd but hasnâ€™t reached my mail box yet, Iâ€™d say itâ€™s gonna take a decade before weâ€™ll see another movie as beautiful as this.
[/quote]

Excellent film indeed. Like all of Shinkai’s films 5 cm is about distance, both physical and emotional. The film is not quite the tearjerker the directors earlier films were, but it also avoids their (minor) problems. No more unnecessary scifi stuff or complex plotting. The focus is on characters and nothing else. The film consists of three related episodes, running 25, 22 and 14 minutes.